November 22nd, 2007

Hello. My name is Daniel Johnson, aka Daniel Primed, and this is my self-titled game analysis blog. I started this blog in 2007, writing topical editorial pieces, but quickly transitioned into more long-form, game-specific writing. In January 2010, inspired by my great friend and mentor, Richard Terrell, I decided to write a book that would allow me to better understand his theories on video game design and summarise how I felt about the current state of games writing. After 2 years of full-time writing, and some time preparing for publishing, that book, Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4, is soon to be released. Between finishing the book and waiting to return to my hometown in Australia to publish it (I had been living in China since I graduated from uni), I wrote the first issue of a bookazine series, Adventures in Games Analysis. Currently, I’m involved in a game design discussion group working on big things and am already moving forward with projects #3 and #4. danielprimed.com is where I provide updates on what I’m working on and articles that don’t find themselves in any of the bigger projects.

The preface to Game Design Companion, which you can read online, is a kind of mission statement for the writing I do, games analysis. Dan Cook’s A Blunt Critique of Games Criticism gives some good context as to why I’m such a strong campaigner for games analysis and so critical of games criticism. If you’re interested in learning more or joining the game design discussion group to chat on a regular basis, then please email me. For a dated round-up of the best articles on the site, see here. Richard Terrell’s Critical-Gaming blog is an indispensable resource.

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